Organization consultant Randy Lisk wanted to write a book. Entitled The Page - 10 Ways To Diagnose and Improve Your Organization, Lisk's work would educate potential clients about his business. "I wanted the book to be something that people who were considering working with us could look at and get an idea of how we operate, without having to work with us for three years," he said.
Self-employed, however, Lisk found the cost of traditional publishing prohibitive. In this digital age anyone can go online and self-publish at far lower cost, but with unpredictable and often unsatisfactory results. So he turned to Clark Publishing Company, the Lexington firm that produces the Kentucky Almanac, The Kentucky General Assembly Guide and The Kentucky Guide, also known as "The Gold Book." In a competitive arena with more than 80,000 book publishers in the United States, owner Bobby Clark has been looking to remain in the game by developing a more affordable alternative to traditional publishing. He calls it "co-operative publishing," and the approach was the solution for Randy Lisk.
"I suppose in the strict sense of the word this is self-publishing, but it does not feel like that to me," Lisk said. "I think, based on new technology and a win-win approach to business, this should be considered as a new approach to publishing. It is true that I bear part of the financial burden, but it seems to me I am getting everything I want out of this relationship, including super support and service; being treated with respect, rather than as an unknown, first-time author; a professional-looking product; flexibility to order as few or as many books as I need; an ability to make changes with quick turnaround; control over the content and a local office - I can drive downtown and sit down with the people doing the work."
It's difficult to quantify the percentage of books published annually in the United States by non-traditional means. According to R.R. Bowker, a global leader in bibliographic information management, nearly 300,000 new titles and editions are published by traditional methods each year. Publishers receive thousands of manuscripts in a typical year, but due to strict standards and criteria, publish only a tiny fraction of them.
Clark's co-op model is designed to accommodate publications intended for smaller, more tightly targeted readerships. "Co-operative Publishing as we envision it is that we will work with the author, and they basically subsidize the cost of creation," Clark said. "If they've already written the book, they've already had it edited and it's ready to go to press, well, they can pay us about $2,500 and we will typeset the book, lay it out, design the cover and be able to turn around and provide them with a small number of books of the book that they have written."
Print-on-demand technology is changing the economics of book publishing. Books are not printed until after an order is received. Barnes and Noble, for example, will carry Clark's "co-operative publishing" books online and order from Clark as copies are sold. If a "co-operative publishing" book receives significant publicity, booksellers will consider stocking it on store shelves, but that is the exception, not the rule.
Clark's arrangement with co-op authors is straightforward: a book that carries a sticker price of $19.95 costs the author $10.00. The author can then pocket $9.95 on each book sold. "But it's very important, if you want to be an author, if you've got the time and energy to go out and promote your book," advised Clark. "There is no one better at marketing a book than the author themselves."
Sylvia Lovely, president of the NewCities Institute and executive director/CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities, turned to Clark to publish The Little Red Book of Everyday Heroes with underwriting by Fifth Third Bank. "As our roots are within Kentucky, we were intent on using a Kentucky-based publisher. Because of The Clark Group's reputation with the Gold Book as well as the Kentucky Almanac, it seemed clear that they were an excellent choice," she said.
Some authors come to Clark with more intimate plans for books they've written. "It was just for the family, for the children and grandchildren just to know about Foster's years in politics," Joyce Ockerman said of The Political Years, a book she and her husband, Foster Ockerman, Sr., published as a family Christmas gift. "We had 50 copies made. I had kept scrapbooks. Foster and I have been married 57 years, and for 57 years, I've kept scrapbooks. So I had a wonderful collection of pictures. I picked out the ones that I wanted, took them down (to Clark), and we decided what pages they would go on, and they just worked great!"
With the digital "e-book" offering the ability to store hundreds of titles in a lightweight device, adjust text size and font face and provide search and cross referencing capabilities, is the bound paper book going the way of the manual typewriter?
Clark doesn't think so. "...there's still some of us that really just like the feel of a book and to curl up next to a fire and read that book the traditional way. I don't believe books will ever go away. There are people who are going to want that experience of flipping the pages and go to bed at night and put it on the bed stand, so I don't expect that to go away."